The Sugarhouse Blues Read online

  “I’m positive. Besides, I like being involved in this project. The theater was the heart of this town once. I think it can be again.” He fell silent. “Being there this afternoon brought back memories. I remember once when I was about six or seven, they opened the theater for the Halloween parade. It had been pouring rain for days and didn’t look as if it was going to let up. The town council was going to cancel the parade, but someone—in retrospect, it must have been Barney—suggested that the parade take place inside the Sugarhouse. We all dressed up in our costumes and paraded through the lobby, down the aisle, and up onto the stage. They gave prizes for the best costumes.”

  “Did you win?”

  Seth laughed. “In my white sheet? Hardly. But we had a great time that night. Ben and Joe were ghosts, too, and the three of us ran back and forth across the stage yelling boo until someone corralled us and sent us back down the steps.”

  “I would have thought a performance like that would have earned a prize.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no accounting for taste. I think first prize went to Cinderella, and the runners-up were a couple of pirates and a kid in a bear costume whose father was principal of the high school.” He smiled at the memory.

  “You three have been friends for that long?”

  “Since kindergarten.” He smiled. “Small towns are like that, Des. You grow up knowing everyone. You stay long enough, you become part of it.”

  “I don’t think I even remember the names of the kids I went to kindergarten with.”

  “Did you change schools after kindergarten? Go to a different elementary school?”

  “I didn’t have friends from school. We were homeschooled after about second or third grade. I don’t remember much before that.”

  “Your mother homeschooled you?”

  Des burst out laughing. “My mother? Oh God, no. She’d have died first. No, no, we had a tutor.” She paused. “You know I used to be on a TV show when I was young, right?”

  “There was talk about Barney’s nieces doing some acting. I’m pretty sure my sister watched your show for a few years.” He added almost apologetically, “I never was one to sit and watch television much. I spent most of my time outside.”

  “No need to apologize. It was pretty much a girly show, though I wish we’d taken a different direction with it.” She rolled her eyes. “Not that anyone ever asked me.”

  “You sound like you didn’t like it much.”

  “I hated it. I never wanted to do it. It was my mother’s idea.” Des shook her head slowly. “I did everything I could to get out of it. That show took my childhood and ruined my relationship with my sister.”

  “You seem to get along okay now.”

  “Some of the time. But there’s always this undertone of resentment. Allie has never forgiven me for getting that role. She wanted it, I didn’t, I got it. That’s the short version.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll get to hear the whole story.”

  “Maybe someday you will.” She tried to think of a polite way to change the subject.

  Seth must have picked up on that, because he asked, “Do you miss the shelter you ran in Montana?”

  “I do, but someone else actually runs it. Mostly I worked with the problem dogs.”

  “What constitutes a ‘problem dog’? You don’t mean vicious dogs?”

  “No, no. Dogs that are poorly socialized, or have been abused and are fearful. Dogs with trust issues. Dogs that are downright mean are something else. There are people who work with dogs like that, but you really have to be specially trained to do that sort of work. I did the easy stuff. Some dogs take longer than others to learn to trust.”

  “I guess dogs aren’t so different from people. Some folks take longer to trust, too.” He took another sip of beer. “You have such a calming way about you, you’re so easy to be around. I suspect dogs sense that as much as people do, and just naturally trust you.”

  “Thanks, Seth.”

  “So have you thought about starting a shelter here? We get strays in town sometimes, and there have been cases where people have dumped unwanted animals up in the hills. When they get picked up, they’re taken to the SPCA or to that shelter outside of Clarks Summit. No telling what happens to them from there.”

  “I do miss it. If I had a place to house the dogs, if I had a network here . . .” She shrugged. “I admit I looked at the carriage house as a possible space, but it’s not a good idea.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “For one thing, it’s too close to the house. Dogs can get a little rowdy if something sets them off at night. I doubt Barney or the neighbors would appreciate a bunch of animals howling in the wee hours.” She took another sip from the bottle, then set it on the step next to her. “Besides, I think it’s too small to take in more than a few animals, and judging from my last appearance before your town council, I’d never get a full-sized operation past zoning.”

  “You have a friend on the council, you know that, right?” Obviously Seth meant himself.

  “I do, and I appreciate it. But that’s only one vote. And there’s maybe the most important reason: I think Cara wants to open a yoga studio, and it looks like she has her eye on the carriage house.”

  “And what Cara wants trumps what you want because . . . ?”

  “Because she’s the most likely to stay when work at the theater is finished.”

  A long moment passed before Seth asked, “So is there someone waiting for you back in Montana?”

  “Only the people who run the shelter, and my book club.”

  “I’ll bet there are plenty of people here in Hidden Falls who’d join a book club if you started one.”

  “Cara and I talked about that. But I don’t know if I want to get involved with anything and then leave. Dogs or people.”

  He seemed to think that over as he started to peel back the label from the bottle.

  “When you go back to Montana, will you take Buttons?”

  “I couldn’t take her from Barney. She loves that dog, and the dog adores her. Whenever I go, Buttons will stay here.”

  “When do you think that will be?”

  Des shrugged. “I have no idea now. We were pretty much on track to get the basic renovation completed, but the mess with the ceiling is going to set us back a bit.”

  “If I can help in any way, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll get that extra set of prints to you.”

  Seth stood and whistled for his dog. Both animals stopped their play, then trotted to him. Buttons sat at Des’s feet, panting.

  “Tell Barney I said good night. Thanks for the beer.” He hooked the leash onto the back of his dog’s harness. “I’ll see you, Des.”

  “Night, Seth.” Des stood and watched him walk away. “Seth,” she called to him.

  At the sound of her voice, he turned back.

  “I’m glad we’re friends,” she told him.

  “Me, too.”

  She leaned on the porch rail, her gaze following him until he and Ripley disappeared around the corner.

  A moment later, the door opened behind her.

  “Was Seth here all this time?” Cara asked.

  “Yeah. Rip looked thirsty, so I gave him some water, and Seth and I just talked for a while.”

  Cara bent down and picked up the empty bottle Seth had left on the step. “Clever dog, drinking out of a bottle.”

  “Seth was thirsty, too.”

  “I could go for a beer myself. Be right back.” Cara turned toward the door. “Want another?”

  “There aren’t any more. Sorry. I took the last two. I’ll replace them tomorrow.”

  “You mustn’t have looked in the right place. I put a six-pack in there myself last night when Joe was here, and we each had one. If you and Seth had one each, there should be two left.” Cara went into the house but returned in minutes. “You’re right, they’re gone. Maybe Allie or Barney drank them. It’s no big deal.
”

  Cara sat next to Des on the step. “Seth’s a super-nice guy.”

  “He really is. I was just telling him how glad I was that we’re friends.”

  “You actually said that to him? ‘I’m glad we’re friends’?”

  Des nodded. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because it’s pretty obvious that he likes you.”

  “I like him, too.”

  “Are you totally oblivious?”

  Des stared blankly at her sister.

  “Des, I think he’d like to be more than friends with you.”

  “No, he said he was glad we were friends, too.”

  It was Cara’s turn to stare.

  “Really, we’re just friends and we like it that way.”

  “You mean you like it that way.”

  Des sighed and leaned over the railing and watched a small bird disappear into one of the boxwoods below the porch. “He’s not my type.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s this big, tattooed giant who rides a motorcycle and smokes cigars as long as my arm. We are exact opposites. I’ve never even been on a motorcycle and I hate the smell of cigars.”

  “So he’s not your type because he represents a certain element of danger?”

  Des ignored her. “And that’s just what’s on the surface. He’s lived here all his life, he belongs here and he knows it. He’s had the same friends since kindergarten.”

  “And those are negatives because . . . ?”

  “He’s used to a different kind of life. He’s been involved in Hidden Falls forever. He’s this big social guy, and I’m a . . .”

  “You’re a what?”

  “I’m a loner. I didn’t have friends from school because Allie and I always had a tutor. I lived most of my childhood on-stage, pretending to be someone I wasn’t, and when I wasn’t working, I’d lose myself in the pages of a book.” Des took a deep breath. “I don’t think Seth has ever had to wonder about who he was. I think he’s always known.”

  “I would think that would be a good thing, Des. A guy who knows who he is, where he belongs, who values his friendships.”

  “I’ve never really belonged anywhere. I don’t know what that would even feel like.” Des had no idea where the words and the feelings came from, or how she found the nerve to express them, but she knew as she spoke that every word was true.

  “But after your show was over, you went on to college, right? You must have made a place for yourself there.”

  “I roomed by myself because I didn’t know how to act around other kids my age. I always felt like a stranger everywhere I went. I moved to Montana because the only friend I ever had—one of my ‘sisters’ on the show—lived there and I figured at least I’d know someone. But she has her own life, her husband and her kids.” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “Seth, he’s Mr. Popularity. People in Hidden Falls like him so much they elected him mayor, what, three times? I watched him at the last town council meeting. The room was packed and people were yelling and he just calmed them down and got everyone back to the agenda. I would have panicked and run out of the room. Seth’d be at home wherever he finds himself, and I don’t know that I’m at home anywhere.”

  “You seem comfortable enough here with us.”

  “It’s different. You’re family.”

  Cara laughed. “We weren’t until very recently.”

  “Barney could make anyone feel at home. And you . . . you’re easy to be around. And I’ve always known how Allie is. No surprise there.” She blew out a breath. “And Seth—he’s the nicest guy I ever met, but he’s fully entrenched here. He belongs here, and I won’t be staying.” She shook her head again. “Besides, he’s just not my type.”

  “So if a guy who likes you enough to adopt a dog he didn’t think he wanted isn’t your type, who is?”

  “Oh, you know, someone who’s . . . well, maybe a little more sophisticated. More, I don’t know, academic, maybe. I’ve always liked that buttoned-down look. Less . . . inked up. Not that that’s a bad thing. It just isn’t my thing. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a nice guy, or that he isn’t right for someone else.”

  “I see.” Her hand on the doorknob, Cara paused. “You can’t always judge a person by their appearance, you know that, right?”

  “I’m not judging.”

  “Really? Because it sounds to me that you are.”

  “I’m not. Seth is great, but we’re too different.”

  “If you aren’t judging, then you’re making excuses. Either way, you lose out.”

  Before Des could protest, Cara had slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Allie’d retreated to her room, citing a raging headache that was beginning to lead to a foul mood. After working in the hot kitchen all day, inhaling paint fumes, and using muscles that had been dormant for a while, she wanted to be alone with her phone—her lifeline to her daughter—and the bottle of vodka she’d picked up the day before.

  She locked her bedroom door and went into the bathroom, where she opened the bottle and poured some of the clear liquid into the glass. She wished she’d had the presence of mind to have filled the glass with some of Barney’s excellent lemonade before she left the kitchen, but there was no way she was going back down there now. Cara and Barney would probably be sitting around that table for the next two hours, talking and laughing, maybe playing a few hands of cards or a few rounds of Clue or Monopoly. Allie wrinkled her nose at the thought. The last thing she wanted to do right then was to try to match wits with her sisters and her aunt.

  She pulled the comfy wing chair close enough to the window to see the woods behind the house, then took her phone from her pocket to reread the text conversation she’d had earlier with Nikki, who’d had a great shopping day with her grandmother Lee. They’d spent the entire day together, having lunch at a fancy place and shopping until they both nearly dropped. Allie was grateful that Clint’s parents doted on Nikki, and that Nikki enjoyed spending time with them. But that her aging grandparents would be the ones taking her to the airport to fly to Scranton still gave Allie pause. So many things could happen to a girl traveling alone. There’d been so much in the news lately about human trafficking that if she thought about it too much, Allie’d go into a panic.

  Allie took another sip and stared out the window, wondering what kind of grandmother Nora would have been, then laughed. Nora had been an absolute bust as a mother. Surely she’d have ignored Nikki as much as she’d ignored Allie once she’d realized Allie had no acting ability.

  At least, that’s what everyone said.

  “Too bad,” she’d heard a producer tell Nora. “That older girl of yours is a knockout, but she can’t act her way out of a paper bag. The younger one’s got all the talent, and she’s cute enough. It’s a shame you couldn’t have combined them into one, Nora. You’d have had yourself a superstar.”

  But in Des, Nora did have a star. Des’s TV show ran for seven freaking years, from the time she was nine until she turned sixteen. At Nora’s insistence, they’d given Allie the recurring part of one of the neighborhood girls, so she didn’t have to be in every episode, and she rarely had more than one or two lines. She’d never understood why she was given so much ambition and so little talent, while her sister, who was in such demand, professed to hate the roles she had to play.

  “Not funny, universe,” Allie whispered. “Not funny at all.”

  Allie couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t resented her younger sister for being a star, but even she had to admit that it wasn’t as if Des’d asked to be blessed with so much talent. But that she had had been a bitter pill for Allie to swallow, made even more bitter by the fact that their mother sometimes seemed to forget she had two daughters.

  That wasn’t Des’s fault, either.

  For years, Allie’d believed that Des protested too much, that she was just saying she hated the show because it got her more attention from Nora. It was only s
ince Allie and Des had been together in Hidden Falls that Allie began to consider that maybe Des hadn’t been lying. Maybe she really hadn’t wanted to do the show, that she did it only because Nora made her do it, that she hated all the attention. If Des’d really enjoyed the spotlight, would she have retreated to that tiny Montana village to rescue dogs, living so quiet a life that Allie would bet that most of the people in Cross Creek didn’t know Des was a former child phenomenon? Wouldn’t she have stayed in L.A., auditioned for roles she’d undoubtedly have gotten, and continued to be a star?

  And yet that underlying sense of resentment lingered. There were times Allie regretted feeling the way she did, but it was so deeply ingrained in her she couldn’t let it go. It was a part of her relationship with her sister, and all wrapped up with her relationship with their mother, and Allie couldn’t seem to untangle it, couldn’t even seem to talk about it. She’d tried, when she went to therapy right after she and Clint separated, but the therapist had told her she needed to face her sister and talk out their childhood issues, and Allie hadn’t gone back.

  Back when she was a child, her father had been her hero. He was the one who always took her side, the one who’d take her on a trip whenever Des’s show was nominated for some award. Nora would crow about how talented her younger daughter was to the point where apparently even Fritz couldn’t take it.

  “Pack a bag, sugar,” he’d tell Allie. “We’re going on an adventure.”

  And they’d go to some fun place, just the two of them. Of course, those trips were fewer and further apart as she grew older and Fritz seemed to spend more and more time away from home. It was only recently that Allie discovered the reason for his long absences. He’d fallen in love with another woman, had another daughter. He’d betrayed not only Nora, but Allie and Des as well.

  Yet as hard as Allie tried, she just couldn’t conjure up the resentment for Cara that she felt her half sister deserved. Of course, their father’s choices weren’t Cara’s fault any more than they were Allie’s or Des’s, but still, Allie hadn’t expected to like Cara as much as she did. Cara was one of the most balanced people Allie had ever known. Even when Allie turned her bitch ray on Cara, it had seemed to miss its mark, and Cara laughed it off. But for Allie, the most startling thing about Cara was that she was willing to keep a secret even when it was obvious she didn’t want to.